Sequoyah Commission Votes To Combine 911 Services

SALLISAW — The Sequoyah County Commission voted 3-0 Monday to eliminate the county's eastern 911 regional trust authority based at Muldrow to combine the county's two 911 services.

SALLISAW — The Sequoyah County Commission voted 3-0 Monday to eliminate the county’s eastern 911 regional trust authority based at Muldrow to combine the county’s two 911 services.

The Western Sequoyah County 911 Regional Trust Authority and 911 emergency dispatch service is at the county courthouse’s Annex No. 2 at Sallisaw.

Commission chairman, District 1 Commissioner Ray Watts, said the commission, the two trust authorities and the governor will have to sign off on the change, “and then we’ll have one good 911 authority.”

Dennis Fields of the west end authority asked the commissioners “to be gentle and to give us 90 days to work out the kinks.”

“It’s not an east end, west end, central thing. It’s Sequoyah County 911. When they ask, ‘Why are they doing this,’ it’s because it’ll be better for the county,” Fields said.

District 3 Commissioner Jim Rogers said he thinks combining the services will be great for the county.

Carter noted that the combined 911 will eliminate duplication of services.

Fields said part of the issue is funding as well as duplication of personnel and effort. For example, he said, 911 callers for the eastern end sometimes call the western service, and their calls must then be transferred to the eastern service and vice versa. By combining into one service, those calls will go to the proper emergency service providers more directly, and fewer staff will be needed for each shift.

Fields said he doesn’t know precisely how many paid staff the two 911 dispatch services have. It is a mix of full-time and part-time workers covering the various shifts. Staffing is among the things that will be reviewed and adjusted over the next 90 days, he said. The authority members are all volunteers, Fields said.

“It’s not about politics. … It’s not about the money. We’re here to help people,” Fields said.

The move also will cut operations costs, Fields said. For example, the trunk, or telephone, lines cost about $2,000 a month and each dispatch service must have one. Combining the two services eliminates the need for one trunk line, he said.

“Everybody who has worked on it over the years has brought it forward. … Our goal all along has been to make it work,” said Fields, a former Sallisaw police officer.

County residents fund the service via a 15 percent tariff on their telephone service. In June 2009, county officials asked voters to approve extending the use of that tariff to not just cover equipment costs but also to cover operations and maintenance, including salary costs. Voters agreed in a 1,087-934 vote.

In December 2010, a 50-cent fee increase allowed the county’s 911 service to establish a countywide reverse 911 and emergency notification program, which helps, for example, keep residents informed of severe weather.

The commission and the authorities began discussion about consolidating the 911 trust as early as July 2009.